Ron Paul: Current Policy Encourages Iran Nukes

Ron Paul has a perfectly logical explanation for why we might have to get used to the idea of an Iran with nuclear power, and he points out, our current policies actually encourage Iran to pursue nukes.

We have six wars going now, he points out, with numerous opportunities for more on the drawing board. We could go into Somalia and clean out al-Qaida and this time, as opposed to our $ 1 trillion war in Iraq, they are actually there.

Likewise, we should have a war against North Korea, the most repressive regime in the world where weapons of mass destruction actually exist.

We could invade Syria. There is a great opportunity to get rid of a terrorist enemy in President Bashar al-Assad? The natives will help us. But such posturing is ridiculous. America is broke. Our endless wars are destroying us. We have lost sight of Thomas Jefferson's maxim, "The more you use your power the less you have."

Do any of the other candidates really believe we should now start a war with Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons? As John Derbyshire pointed out in his piece in the National Review, "Which Republican candidate advocates such a course of action? If the answer is 'none' [which of course it is], then what, in effect, is the difference between Dr. Paul's Iran politics and that of Romney, Bachmann, Perry, and the rest?" Other than the phony rhetoric and demagoguery? Not a hill of beans.

Dr. Paul points out that Iran's neighbors, China, Pakistan, Russia, and Israel all have nuclear weapons. And that Israel is well able to take care of itself. Thirty years ago, June 7, 1981, in Operation Opera, Israel took out Iran's developing nuclear program. That was at time when American presidents were not dictating what Israel could or could not do.

Paul would end American veto power of Israel and let them have its own foreign policy. He points out the absurdity of giving $ 3 billion of aid to Israel $12 billion to its avowed enemies. We are funding both sides.

Likewise, all the posturing about sanctions is ridiculous. When we invaded Iraq, we found that the German company Siemens had built entire factories in Baghdad and the French were open for business, lying through their teeth in the United Nations, while making a fortune off the sanctions by doing a bustling business with Iraq. Sanctions only hurt the poor in a given country and keep American businesses out. Nobody else but the United States pays the slightest heed.

"Of course, we don't want more nuclear weapons," Paul told an interviewer on Fox TV yesterday. But building up the country with more war fever is feeding a false promise. We don't want more wars either."

Doug Wead is a New York Times best-selling author and a former adviser to two American presidents. He is senior adviser to the Ron Paul presidential campaign.

Ron Paul has a perfectly logical explanation for why we might have to get used to the idea of an Iran with nuclear power, and he points out, our current policies actually encourage Iran to pursue nukes.
We have six wars going now, he points out, with numerous opportunities...